David Baldacci - The Last Mile

Bogart said, “Let’s go.”

He reached out to grip McClellan’s arm.

The round impacted McClellan directly in the forehead, tattooing a third eye there. He fell back against Bogart and then dropped to the ground.

Milligan pulled his weapon. Mars grabbed Jamison and Davenport and pushed them to the dirt.

Decker looked at McClellan’s body, blood from his head wound pooling around him. Then he launched himself toward the other man, who stood there, shell-shocked.

The second round hit the cuffed man in the chest and blew out between his shoulder blades. He fell back against Decker, who had felt the wake of the bullet as it exited the man’s back before slamming into the dirt.

McClellan’s buddy slid down to the ground. He had died the second the bullet ripped into his heart.

Two dead men lay on the ground along with six people who were still alive, for now.

The two agents in the transport vehicle had leapt from the front seats and taken cover behind it. “The shots came from over there,” one of them called out, pointing to the east.

Bogart called back, “Get us some reinforcements up here. And dial a chopper up and see if they can track whoever it is.”

But as Decker lay in the dirt with the dead man draped over him, he already knew that it was too late.

Davenport was in a hospital where she would stay overnight to be checked out thoroughly. It seemed that she would make a quick and full recovery, at least physically. The mental and emotional part might take a while.

Jamison and Milligan were there with her now, along with several other FBI agents. They were taking no chances that anything else would happen to her.

McClellan and the other man were in the local morgue.

Their killer had gotten clean away. By the time reinforcements arrived at that remote area of Mississippi, Decker figured he could have walked to Tennessee.

Now he, Bogart, and Mars were sitting around a table in an office at the morgue contemplating the loss of their prime witness.

“Oliver can’t tie anything to Huey and Eastland,” said Bogart. “She never met with them, never had any contact with them in any way. It all went through McClellan.”

“I’m sure that was intentional,” said Decker. “Eastland and Huey had a lot more to lose. But they were far smarter and more sophisticated than the late police chief. He was their attack dog, nothing more.”

“We’re looking into all of his stuff, but his computer was mostly empty and he apparently didn’t write anything down. Whatever communication he had with the other two Musketeers must have been face-to-face.”

“And it’s a long road filled with potholes trying to connect the dots on this,” noted Decker. “Particularly for crimes nearly fifty years old.”

Mars absently nodded at this comment but said nothing.

Decker said, “They had McClellan and his partner killed, of course. They must have been watching him, or us. McClellan runs out of his office and they follow him up here. Or maybe Eastland and Huey knew about this place. McClellan’s dad left it to him. McClellan might have told them he was keeping her here.”

Bogart said, “I know that, you know that, but we can’t prove it. We recovered the rounds, but we’ll never find a weapon to match them to. My guess is that Eastland, with all his work in the defense field, and all his money, hired some pro to do it. And that guy is long gone and living on some island with his earnings. And we don’t have enough probable cause to even dig into Eastland’s finances to look for a payout. Besides, that guy probably knows every accounting trick in the book. Needle in a haystack that we’re not going to find.”

“But we did get Lisa back,” said Mars.

“And thank God for that,” added Bogart.

He looked at Decker, who was nodding in agreement. “And now we have to make sure everyone is held accountable.”

“I’d love to,” said Bogart. “But how? McClellan is dead. Without him we have no evidence against Huey or Eastland.”

“There’s really only one way,” said Decker.

“What?” asked Bogart.

It was Mars who answered. “Roy Mars.”

Decker nodded. “He’s got all the evidence we need.”

“Great, Decker, give me his address and I’ll go pick him up,” said Bogart sarcastically.

“Maybe we need to have him come to us .”

“How? We have no way to contact the guy anyway.”

“Sure we do.”

Mars looked at him. “We do?”

“Just send a reply to the text he sent you, Melvin, when he was pretending to be me.”

Mars pulled out his phone. “Damn, I forgot about that.”

Bogart was staring at Decker. “Okay, but what’s the inducement?”

“We’ve always had the bait. We’ve just never employed it properly.”

“Oh, thank you for clearing that up,” said Bogart dryly. “But for lesser minds, could you fill us in?”

“His wife,” said Decker.

“What does my mom have to do with this?” asked Mars.

In answer Decker sat down and wrote out something on a piece of paper and then passed it over to Mars. “Write that in a text to him and let’s see what happens,” he said.

Bogart came around and read the note over Mars’s shoulder. He looked at Decker. “Do you really think this will do it?”

“If that doesn’t I’m not sure what else will.”

Bogart rubbed his chin nervously and then nodded at Mars. “Go ahead and do it. Like Decker said, I’m not sure what we have to lose at this point.”

Mars carefully typed the message onto his phone and his finger wavered over the send button. He looked first at Bogart and next Decker. He said, “He really did love her. He loved her enough to kill her.”

“And that’s what I’m counting on, Melvin. In fact, it’s all that I’m counting on.“

Mars pressed the send button and the text flew off.

Bogart drew a deep breath.

“Well, let’s hope to hell that this works. Because I don’t think we have a Plan B.”

You’ve got balls. I’ll give you that.

The text came in at two o’clock in the morning three days later. The ping roused Mars, who’d only been half asleep. He rose, read the text twice, and then called Decker and read it to him.

They were now staying at a hotel in D.C. Decker was at Mars’s door in less than five minutes.

Mars looked at the fully dressed Decker. “Didn’t you even go to sleep?”

“I tried but I never really got there.”

“Me either.”

Decker looked at the text and then tapped the phone against his hand. “He’s intrigued and pissed. But I’d wager more intrigued than pissed.”

He typed in a message and held it up for Mars to see.

We can agree on that. So where do we go from here?

Mars nodded and Decker hit the send key.

They waited. And waited.

It was five in the morning before they got a response.

Decker said, “He doesn’t seem to sleep either.”

The message was terse:

You screw me on this you’re dead. And so is Decker. I’ll get back to you.

“I like a man who speaks his mind and doesn’t dance around the issues,” said Decker.

The next night the “get back to you” message came:

Tuscaloosa. Two nights from tonight. Midnight. Just you and Decker. Anybody else within five miles, I’m gone for good.

Tacked onto this was a street address.

Decker closed his eyes and let his mind whir to the correct spot. “That’s the location of the NAACP office that was bombed in sixty-eight.”

“You think he’ll meet us there?”

“I think he’s a very careful man.”